TRDS 04

 Chapter 4

Return of the Sword 

“Pardon me……? Who did you say you were?”

The young man stared blankly at Heoncheon’s face.

As far as he knew, the Estate Lord of the Heo family had long since passed sixty and was approaching seventy this year.

If he was the son of such an old man, he should have been at least forty.

Yet his skin was smooth and youthful, and he looked barely over twenty.

And that was not the only thing that bothered him.

“The son of this house was said to have died twenty years ago……”

Before the young man could finish, Heoncheon said,

“That’s what everyone was told, I suppose. But here I am, aren’t I?”

“Don’t tell me you used some kind of Face-Preserving Art……”

“Why are you trying to slap some cheap technique onto me? It’s all thanks to my cultivation.”

“Ah…… I-I apologize. I see. So you really are the son of the Estate Lord. I must have been mistaken for a moment. To think I would say such an absurd thing when you’re standing here perfectly alive. Ha, hahaha……”

Sweat poured down the young man’s face as he thought to himself,

‘This is bad! If I stay here any longer, I’m screwed!’

Of all people, the Estate Lord’s son had turned out to be some completely absurd expert.

If he wanted to keep his life, he had to retreat as quickly as possible.

The young man put on a servile smile and said,

“My goodness! On such a joyous day, a family should be spending time together in harmony! We’ll be taking our leave now……”

“Right. Since you say it’s such a joyous day, it would be rather rude to simply send a guest away empty-handed.”

Heoncheon’s fingers rapidly poked the young man in several places.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

First, the young man’s right arm went limp.

Then his left leg became as floppy as an invertebrate.

Finally, his head drooped helplessly downward.

“Here, a little gift for our guest. With your level of internal energy, this should last…… what, thirty or forty years? Hmm, now that I think about it, that’s almost exactly how long it took me to leave home and come back. Ha! Guests who arrive on an auspicious day really are something special.”

“Ugh…… Gaaah……!”

Heoncheon spoke excitedly with a grin on his face, but none of his words reached the young man, who had been reduced to a half-paralyzed state in an instant.

After dealing with the young man who had caused such a commotion in his family home, Heoncheon walked over to the fallen Im Ho-pil.

“Chief Steward, are you alright?”

“Ugh…… Thank you for helping me, but when did this old man ever meet you, Young Master? Why are you speaking to me so casually from the moment we meet…… Hm?”

Im Ho-pil stopped speaking and frowned.

It was strange enough that this young man was acting familiar with him, but there was also something strangely familiar about his face.

Yet no matter how hard he searched his memory, this was definitely the first time he had seen him.

‘Who in the world is he?’

Just as Im Ho-pil’s doubts were growing, Heoncheon said,

“If you’re curious, five nyang.”

“Curious? Five nyang? What does that even…… Wait! Those words! That’s a line the protagonist of that Heroic Tales novel the Young Master used to quote all the time…… Gasp! Could you possibly be……!”

Heoncheon grinned.

“Chief Steward, I never thought you had it in you. Since when did you develop the talent for casually killing people who are perfectly alive?”

The Heroic Tales novel featuring the protagonist whose line Heoncheon had just imitated was the very one Im Ho-pil had recommended to him.

That was why Heoncheon had decided to give it a try.

Fortunately, Im Ho-pil still remembered it.

“A-Are you really the Young Master?”

Im Ho-pil asked with an expression of disbelief.

Heoncheon nodded.

“It’s been a long time, Chief Steward. I’m really late, aren’t I?”

“Th-this isn’t a dream, is it? You really are the Young Master?”

“I am. So explain what’s going on first. Who the hell is that bastard?”

“That bastard……? Gasp!”

Im Ho-pil suddenly noticed the young man who had been reduced to a half-paralyzed state.

“……D-Did you do that to him, Young Master?”

“Who else would have?”

“My goodness……”

The young man Heoncheon had taken down possessed martial arts superior to Im Ho-pil’s own.

For Heoncheon to reduce such a person to a half-paralyzed state meant that his martial arts were on an entirely different level.

Now that he looked closely, even Heoncheon’s youthful appearance could be explained by his martial arts.

But the martial arts of the Heo family alone could never have made something like this possible.

Genuinely curious, Im Ho-pil asked,

“What in the world have you been doing all this time? The Murim Alliance told us that you died in battle.”

At his question, Heoncheon gazed into the distant sky.

“You could say I was sent far away on a forced vacation as a reward for making a great contribution.”

“What?”

Im Ho-pil tilted his head at Heoncheon’s roundabout answer.

“I’ll tell you my story later. For now, tell me about that bastard.”

“Phew. Before that, I should bring Madam here first.”

“Mother? Come to think of it, where is she?”

“She and the Youngest Miss have temporarily taken refuge at your maternal grandfather’s family home.”

“You mean the Zhao Estate? Hmm, if they’re there, then they should certainly be safe…… Wait. The youngest? I have a younger sibling? A younger sister, too?”

When he had checked on his family twenty years ago, there had been no mention of anything like this.

At Heoncheon’s bewildered question, Im Ho-pil looked slightly embarrassed.

“Well…… as you know, the relationship between your parents has always been very good, so ten years ago…… Ahem.”

Heoncheon was stunned.

‘Good heavens. A late-in-life child? A late-in-life child?!’

When he had been young, he had begged his parents countless times to give him a younger sibling.

They had never even pretended to listen.

‘Wow. They actually had a late-in-life baby at their age.’

He felt a little betrayed, but his joy and relief were far greater.

After losing their only son and being separated from him for so long, his parents must have been terribly lonely.

How much comfort must their daughter have brought them?

‘I wonder what she looks like.’

Heoncheon’s parents were both well known for their good looks.

Having inherited their blood, his little sister was naturally bound to be beautiful as well.

Heoncheon himself was certainly not bad-looking, either.

“That’s really good news. But Chief Steward, since things turned out this way, wouldn’t it be better to explain the situation to me properly first rather than bringing Mother here in the middle of all this chaos? You’ve been changing the subject so obviously that even I can see it.”

“That……”

Im Ho-pil looked conflicted.

No matter what, he did not want to burden Heoncheon, who had only just returned home after such a long time, with the troubles of the household.

That was why he had kept changing the subject.

Heoncheon said,

“Chief Steward, I’m the eldest son of this family. I should at least know what’s going on in my own home, shouldn’t I? Right? So what exactly happened?”

After Heoncheon pressed him repeatedly, Im Ho-pil finally let out a deep sigh as though admitting defeat.

“Phew. Please follow me.”

Inside a dark room filled with the strong scent of medicine, a painfully thin old man lay motionless on a bed, his face pale with illness.

It was Heoncheon’s father, Heo Jung-man, the Estate Lord of the Heo family.

“……How long has he been like this?”

“This is his fourth year.”

“Four years in a coma. Did he suffer qi deviation?”

“Yes. The Estate Lord said that if we were to rebuild the strength of the family after the Righteous-Demonic War, he absolutely had to break through the Peak Realm. So he continued training beyond his limits. Then, one day, he finally……”

“I see. So that’s what happened.”

The founder of the Heo family had been a Peak Realm expert, but every generation after him had barely managed to reach the First-Class Realm at best.

It was not that their descendants were particularly lacking in talent compared to their ancestor.

The problem was that the martial art they had inherited was incomplete.

The Clear Void Heart Method.

It was a Daoist cultivation method. Its energy was pure, and it was not a bad technique for laying the foundation of martial arts.

But it had one fatal flaw.

There was no method within it for advancing into the higher realms.

No matter how hard one trained throughout their life, the First-Class Realm was the limit.

The reason the founder of the Heo family had reached the Peak Realm was because he had learned the complete Clear Void Heart Method.

In other words, the Heo family was a branch family whose true martial lineage originated from another sect.

Heoncheon already knew this history well.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk. Pushing himself that hard at his age. So, what about that reckless idiot who barged into our home and caused a scene? His internal energy looked similar to ours. Is he from the same sect?”

“Yes. Just as you guessed, Young Master. That man, Yeo Chang-hae, is a descendant of the great Yeo Jong-san, the Jiangdong Fist Hero, who was a fellow disciple of our family’s founder.”

“Then why did someone like that barge into our house? Hmm. Something smells fishy.”

Both the Heo family and Yeo Chang-hae’s lineage had inherited incomplete cultivation methods from the same original sect.

But that did not mean their methods were completely identical.

And if they were different, then perhaps each side possessed something that could fill the gaps in the other.

Once Heoncheon thought that far, Yeo Chang-hae’s intentions became obvious.

“I see. He wanted to see our version of the cultivation manual, didn’t he?”

“Yes, exactly.”

“When did he start coming here?”

“He first came this spring.”

“Spring? That’s been quite a while.”

It was autumn now.

That meant Yeo Chang-hae had been coming to the Heo Estate and wearing down their doorstep for at least six months.

“At first, I politely refused him. Although they share the same sect origins as us, there has been absolutely no contact between our families for generations.”

Heoncheon nodded.

He genuinely had no memory of ever interacting with any of Yeo Jong-san’s descendants when he was young.

At that point, they were essentially strangers.

“Besides, we couldn’t let outsiders know about the Estate Lord’s condition, so whenever he came, I told him the Estate Lord was away.”

“I see. So after getting rejected over and over, Yeo Chang-hae finally lost his temper and showed his true colors?”

“Lost his temper?”

Im Ho-pil tilted his head at Heoncheon’s mutter.

“Oh, those are Japanese leftovers that people in the Central Plains don’t use. Don’t worry about it. Just keep explaining.”

“Japan? What does that have to do with anything?”

“They exist. Those monkey bastards living on an island across the sea. Nasty bunch.”

“……I see. Anyway, just as you guessed, Young Master, he gradually revealed his true intentions. He insisted that he had to meet the Estate Lord somehow. I refused and told him it was impossible, so in the end, he simply stormed into our estate today with his subordinates.”

“That could have turned into a serious problem.”

“Yes. I had Madam and the Youngest Miss evacuated beforehand just in case. But if you hadn’t returned today……”

“Enough. We handled it without any major problems. Forget about that guy for now. How about we deal with Father’s problem instead?”

“Yes? Do you have some way to help him?”

“He suffered qi deviation, right? If it were an illness or something like that, there wouldn’t be much I could do…….”

Heoncheon smiled confidently.

“But if it’s a problem with his martial arts, that’s a different story.”

Heoncheon put off reuniting with the rest of his family for the moment.

Instead, he sat in his father Heo Jung-man’s study and casually flipped through an old booklet about the thickness of a finger joint.

Written neatly across the front was the title:

Clear Void Heart Method.

Heoncheon had learned it when he was young, but only at the introductory level.

This was the first time he had properly examined the entire technique.

After carefully reading through the manual several times, Heoncheon tilted his head.

‘That’s strange.’

The principles of the Clear Void Heart Method itself were not particularly different from those of other Daoist cultivation methods.

That was why the method was extremely stable.

Unless one trained recklessly or circulated their energy along the wrong paths, it was almost impossible to suffer qi deviation from practicing it.

‘No matter how many times I look at it, there’s nothing here that should cause qi deviation. So where did things go wrong?’

He continued examining the manual with that question in mind.

Then suddenly, Heoncheon’s eyes lit up.

‘Oh-ho. What’s this? Here…… and here…… and even here? Now that I look closely, this thing wasn’t simply an incomplete manual after all.’

Amazingly, there were obvious gaps deliberately left between the principles of the Clear Void Heart Method.

If the proper principles for advancing into the higher realms were added to those gaps, the Clear Void Heart Method could be improved dramatically.

‘The person who gave our founder this incomplete version probably intended for him to fill in these gaps himself and establish his own lineage.’

After all, it was difficult for a person to see beyond their own level.

Heoncheon had not only mastered supreme techniques that were incomparable to the Clear Void Heart Method, but his experiences during the Righteous-Demonic War had also greatly expanded his knowledge and understanding of various martial arts.

That was why he could immediately see the deliberate gaps in the Clear Void Heart Method and understand their meaning, something the people of the Heo family had failed to notice until now.

‘Father must have subconsciously noticed this too. That’s probably why he suddenly started pushing himself so hard.’

He had been thinking about the future of the family rather than himself.

But his own realm was only around the First-Class Realm.

Unlike his son Heoncheon, he lacked the martial knowledge and insight needed to fill those gaps.

Nor did he have a network of experts he could ask for advice.

The Heo family was like a stagnant lake in Hangzhou, and the heads of the family had always been extremely introverted people.

“In the end, he tore his own legs apart trying to keep up with a stork.”

Trying to smash your head against a wall really could be dangerous.

“Alright. I’ll look into this properly later. For now, let’s go back to Father.”

Now that Heoncheon knew the cause of the problem, solving it would be as easy as eating cold porridge.

Heoncheon immediately headed for his father’s room.

The maids who had been caring for Heo Jung-man, who could barely move on his own, were startled when Heoncheon suddenly entered.

“Young Master, what brings you here all of a sudden……?”

“Everyone, get out.”

“Pardon?”

“Don’t let anyone come in until I tell you to.”

Faced with the sudden order to leave and his one-sided command, the maids did not know what to do.

In the end, they simply did as he said.

At the same time, one of the maids hurried away somewhere.

Judging from the direction she ran in, she seemed intent on calling Im Ho-pil.

After all, he was the only person in the Heo Estate who could stop Heoncheon right now.

Heoncheon paid no attention to her.

He closed the door and approached his father, who was lying on the bed.

“Father. It’s me, Cheon. I’ve been away for far too many years because of circumstances beyond my control. But what in the world is this? Lying here like this…… Are you really going to make this utterly unfilial son worry himself sick? You should be hitting me for making you suffer so much.”

A vertical crease appeared between Heoncheon’s brows as he spoke words that were somewhere between a complaint and a confession.

“Do you know why I wasn’t completely miserable even after living comfortably in another world and then being dropped into this backward place? It was because I had the hope that my parents, who would welcome me home, were still alive and healthy. Father, I didn’t come back to see you like this! So……”

Heoncheon stopped for a moment and took a deep breath.

Then he suddenly clenched both fists tightly and finished what he had to say.

“From now on, you’re not allowed to be sick without my permission.”

Rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat!

The moment he finished speaking, Heoncheon’s fists began hammering every part of Heo Jung-man’s body at rapid speed like a barrage of bullets.